The battlefield ignited with chaos.
Steel clashed against steel. Energy blasts lit the sky like false dawn. Snow melted beneath the heat of war, revealing ice-stained earth soaked in blood and fire.
Isabella moved like a phantom through the chaos, her blade cutting clean through the front line of True Line soldiers. These weren't human—not fully. Their eyes glowed red behind their helmets, and their bodies moved with unnatural speed, enhanced by the same monstrous science Voss had once used on Shade.
And yet—they fell.
Because Isabella had something they didn't: a purpose of her own choosing.
Beside her, Shade fought like a storm unleashed. Her cloak shredded, her bare arms glimmering with arcane tattoos—faint traces of the experiments she'd endured. But now, they were not shackles.
They were power.
With each movement, she commanded bursts of kinetic force, sending attackers flying back like rag dolls. Her soldiers—once cold, brutal enforcers—now followed her with something more than fear.
Loyalty.
Because today, they didn't see a weapon.
They saw a queen.
---
Above the Ice
From the ridge, Alexander coordinated artillery strikes, guiding Southern forces with precision and unrelenting focus.
Elias worked beside him, rerouting communications, keeping the link open between both armies.
"We've got a breach on the left flank!" Elias called. "They're trying to push toward the ruins!"
Alexander's eyes narrowed. "The ruins… That's where the entrance to Crownroot must be."
He hit the comm. "Isabella! They're not here to win this fight—they're here to unlock whatever's buried under us!"
Down below, Isabella and Shade stood back to back as another wave surged toward them.
"Then we stop them here," Shade said, voice steady.
"But if they reach it—"
"Then the world becomes something unrecognizable."
---
A Reckoning in the Ice
Cassia appeared suddenly, charging into the fray atop a commandeered skimmer. Her eyes locked on her daughters—two forces of nature standing together in defiance.
"You both survived him," she shouted over the clash of war. "Now show them you can end what he started!"
At her words, Isabella and Shade exchanged a look—not just of strategy, but of something deeper.
Recognition.
And together, they moved.
They surged forward like twin blades of fire and frost—cutting a path straight through the heart of the enemy's assault. Shade summoned a blast of psychic force, shattering an entire wave. Isabella followed, sweeping down enemy after enemy, her sword singing through the air.
The line held.
And then—
Silence.
The remaining True Line soldiers retreated toward the eastern ridge—toward the ruins.
"They're going for the gate," Shade whispered.
"And we're going after them," Isabella replied.
Behind them, their unified army stood—bruised, bleeding, but alive. Watching the two sisters who had once stood on opposite sides now lead them forward together.
The final war had not yet begun.
But the world had already changed.
---